Will you send me that Michelet on the Romans?1 Nisard2 too since you recommend it might be welcome; and any other light thing you have that comes under the same category. Niebuhr3 hitherto altogether disappoints me: vain jargon of cognoscente scholarcraft, conceited Caylusism;4 and for result, darkness visible. I have not found one tolerable idea that is Neibuhr's [sic] exclusively, and not the general property of Germany as well.

Pity me with these Lectures: Invitissimä Minervä [completely without inspiration]!5

3. Barthold Georg Niebuhr, Römische Geschichte, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1811–12); see also TC to G, 22 Dec. 1829. In his lecture on the Romans TC expanded this: “As to Niebuhr himself, he has accumulated a vast quantity of quotations
and other materials, and, in short, his book is altogether a laborious thing; but he affords, after all, very little light
on that early period. One does not find that he makes any conclusion out except destruction; and, after a laborious perusal
of his work, we are forced to come to the conclusion that Niebuhr knew no more of the history of that period than I do” (Lectures, ed. J. Reay Greene 39).